HOW far would you go to achieve success? 

Inventing Anna, a 2022 Netflix series, tries to answer this question. Based on the real case of Anna Delvey, the story has two layers. 

One— that of a disgraced investigative journalist who tries to redeem herself by probing the odd case of Anna Delvey— and two, the story of Anna Delvey herself, a proclaimed German heiress socialite, who, by the time of the series, was in jail and awaiting trial for scamming big financiers, hotels, and banks. 

This second layer— that which concerns Anna— was the meat of the story. 

Basically, Anna Delvey was not who she claimed to be. In fact, her surname was not even real. She was not a German heiress with a big trust fund, but a con artist who infiltrated New York’s elite by pretending to belong. 

Although the series presented itself as an “eat-the-rich” critique, positioning Anna as a kind of anti-hero, many netizens and critics quickly challenged this framing. 

What Anna did was not a subversion of class structures, nor was it revolutionary in any meaningful way for the lower classes—whom she arguably saw as beneath her. Instead, her actions merely reinforced the status quo by mimicking it. 

Her goal was never to dismantle the elite, but to become one of them.

This opens a whole new can of worms in which to discuss the series. Because rather than painting Anna as a misunderstood anti-hero, we must shift our focus on a more interesting holistic understanding of the problem:

Anna’s case doesn’t make her a hero, but it does reveal the deeper flaws of a society obsessed with illusion, status, and spectacle. 

Welcome to the Simulation: Anna Delvey Edition

Is Anna Delvey real at all?

The answer to that question depends on how you look at it. Anna Delvey is real in the most literal sense—she exists. There’s tangible, biological proof that she’s a person: she breathes, she speaks, she moves through the world. Official documents confirm her identity. 

But her identity—the way she presents herself, the story she tells about her past, and who she believes she truly is—is an entirely different matter.

For some, especially those who uncovered her deception, Anna Delvey is nothing more than a figment of Anna Sorokin’s imagination—the persona carefully crafted by the woman behind the name.

But when a persona is performed so convincingly that others treat it as real—when hotels, banks, and New York’s elite buy into the illusion—it stops being just a lie. It becomes something else entirely. 

This is where hyperreality comes in: the point where the fake not only imitates the real but becomes more believable, more powerful, and more accepted than the truth itself.

The concept of hyperreality was philosophized more famously by Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist and philosopher. 

At the heart of this is the concept of simulacra: copies that no longer refer to any original. In fact, the original might not have existed at all. These simulacra are copies of copies of copies — layers of meaning and representation detached from any grounding in “truth.”

We see this play out in the series. Anna’s identity as a socialite wasn’t defined by her economic capital, but social one. Her Instagram post, her branded clothes and luxury bags, and her access to small and exclusive circles helped position her in the light of opulence. 

And no one questioned her legitimacy as long as she looked the part. 

In one scene, Anna even managed to board a private jet without the promised wire transfer ever arriving. When an officer raised the issue, a higher-up simply asked whether he was willing to tell someone as rich as Anna that she couldn’t fly before dropping the subject. 

We see this dynamic play out throughout the film. When big financiers and the elite circle researched Anna, what they looked at was not her economic capital or monetary capabilities, but her connections, associations, and social media. 

In fact, Anna’s Instagram posts were implied to be one of the biggest reasons the rich believed she was one of them. To their eyes, she looked the part—jet-setting to exclusive destinations, staying in luxury hotels, and documenting it all online. No ordinary person could afford that life, so she must be rich.

Her photos became proof of her identity as a wealthy German heiress. Her attitude, her accent, and her curated taste only reinforced the illusion—everything about her seemed rich.

Anna Delvey— the identity— existed in this hyperreal state, where simulation becomes more convincing than reality. 

In fact, by the end of the series, she had convinced herself that her delusions were true. 

Act Like You Belong and They’ll Let You In

But Anna wasn’t just living in a simulation—she was performing it.

And that performance exposed something deeper: the unspoken rules that govern class and access.

Take the term “nouveau riche”, for instance. It literally means “new rich” and is often used to mock those who’ve climbed the social ladder but still don’t “fit in.” 

These are people who may have the wealth, but not the cultural cues or social fluency that the upper class uses to police its boundaries. Because in elite spaces, class isn’t just about how much you have—it’s about how well you perform it.

This idea was at the heart of Pierre Bordeau’s Theory of Capital. According to the French sociologist, class is not just determined through your economic capital or how much money and assets you have. You must also possess social and cultural capitals to belong to the ruling class. 

Bordeau didn’t specifically coined it, but the scholars after him considered class not just a matter of economic status but also of “cultural performance.” 

This means that you must have the proper network of relationships and connections (social capital), manners, language, posture, and skills (cultural capital) to truly get in the boundary that divides the elites to the rest. 

Anna, who lacked the economic capital, was a master of this game. Being around the elites because of her work in a fashion magazine exposed her to their culture. 

She then used it to build her identity— to camouflage herself— as one of them. 

We saw this play out in Episode 2. Anna used her cultural capital to achieve network and connections (social capital). 

In one long monologue, Val, Anna’s gay designer friend, described her. He went on a long monologue about Anna’s impeccable taste with art, fashion, and food. 

“That bitch was flawless. People like that are born with taste,” said Val, implying what we already know about class— that they rely on cultural capital. 

“She knew all the right things to say and do. Anna was never ‘let’s eat at Mr. Chow.’ Shudder, no, no, no. Anna knows that excellent salmon was at Lucien. That back in the day, the best dish at The Waverly was the Amish chicken. Not anymore, now it’s disgusting,” said Val.

“But then Anna knew. And wine. You can always tell by the wine order. New money always gets the most expensive bottle. Anna ordered like generational wealth. Regions, years. Anna belonged. Anna was society.”

This was Anna’s strategy. A performance of distinction. 

In his landmark work Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Bourdieu explains how taste is never neutral. What people consider “refined” or “cultured” isn’t simply about preference— it’s about power. The upper class defines what counts as good taste (art, fashion, wine, music) and uses that taste as a gatekeeping mechanism.

That’s cultural capital in action: knowing what wine to order, which restaurant is acceptable, which labels whisper luxury rather than scream it. It’s the subtle language of class— and Anna, who never belonged in terms of economic capital, spoke it fluently. 

Bourdieu would argue that Anna hacked the system. She lacked the traditional economic capital, but she weaponized cultural and social capital to create symbolic capital— prestige, recognition, and legitimacy. And for a while, that was enough.

Until it wasn’t.

Because the irony of Bourdieu’s theory is this: while cultural capital can help you climb, it still depends on recognition from those who hold power. 

Anna’s fall came when those elites, once seduced by her fluency, began to doubt her resources. When the illusion of wealth cracked, her cultural performance could no longer sustain her place in the field.

She didn’t just fake it till she made it — she faked it too well, revealing the uncomfortable truth that class isn’t as natural or deserved as elites would like to believe.

The Spectacle of Class

Anna Delvey shouldn’t be treated as a hero. She’s a con artist. A scammer. She was part of the lower classes but chose to be a sub-oppressor rather than a revolutionary. 

But here’s the thing— the fault is not hers alone. The elites were complicit in prioritizing a world that values spectacle more than reality. They were the ones who created the system, the pattern, the rules, determined to segregate themselves as superior. 

Anna’s fault was that she knew these rules and used them against them. 

Guy Debord, a French philosopher, critiqued society as one big spectacle that is organized around appearances, commodification, and passive consumption. 

Debord expanded on Marx’s idea of commodity fetishism, where the social and human value of a thing is erased and replaced with market value. And this logic doesn’t stop at things—it infects how we see ourselves. Instead of living authentically, we become spectators of our own lives, constantly performing and consuming what we think life is supposed to look like.

And who defines that ideal? A powerful few—the elites who control media, fashion, finance, and culture. The ones who decide what beauty means, what success looks like, and who gets to belong.

So when Anna Delvey mimicked those ideals—when she dressed the part, spoke the part, lived the part—the system didn’t reject her. It rewarded her. Because in a world built on spectacle, the performance is everything. And if you can fake it well enough, you don’t just pass—you win.

But Anna was exposed. And although she was no Robinhood and everything else was accidental, her mess also exposed that the elite were no different at all. 

That’s what made them uncomfortable. Ashamed. Not because she fooled them, but because it was revealed just how easily their world can be imitated. It was shown that what they guard so preciously—status, taste, exclusivity—isn’t rooted in substance. It’s smoke and mirrors. A costume party with a strict guest list.

Anna Delvey broke the illusion. She blurred the line between insider and outsider, and exposed the truth they never wanted to admit: that there’s nothing inherently special about them. That the world they built isn’t built on merit, refinement, or superiority—but on performance.

Yes, Anna scammed them. But if you asked me, the real scam is that we ever believed the rich were special to begin with.